Philhealth to tap reserves for members’ benefits

PHILHEALTH will tap its P90-billion reserve fund to increase its members’ health benefits by reducing their out-of-pocket expenses during hospitalization, chief executive Eduardo Banzon said Wednesday.

But he declined to say how much the government health insurance firm would take out of its reserve fund for that purpose.

“We are still looking at it,” Banzon told reporters during Tuesday’s health forum sponsored by the Philippine College of Physicians.

He said they may not use PhilHealth’s retained earnings to cover its members’ additional premium contributions by 2012 and 2013. The members’ premium payments must increase to increase all the benefits due them, he said.

Before Banzon announced an increase in the premium contributions to PhilHealth late last month, Senator Franklin Drilon, the Senate’s finance committee chairman, called on Banzon’s predecessor Rey Aquino to use PhilHealth’s reserve fund to reduce its members’ premium payments, boost their health benefits, and expand its coverage of the poor.

“We’re looking here at the long-term sustainability of PhilHealth, so we need the reserve fund or whatever it is called,” Banzon said.

He said PhilHealth would collect over P60 billion next year as a result of the higher premiums, but it would give employers enough time to prepare for the higher payments. The insurance firm is estimated to collect P35 billion this year.

The premium payments of PhilHealth’s poorest members will increase to P2,400 a year by Jan. 1 next year.

The poor and individually paying members and Filipino workers abroad will increase their payments by the same amount in July 2012, but they may avail themselves of the old rate of P1,200 if their dues had been paid fully by that date.

“They can even be locked in to the P1,200-per- year rate if they sign up for two years,” Banzon said.

The premium payments of those regularly employed will be pegged at 3 percent of their basic monthly pay by January 2013.

Banson said 70 percent of the country’s 100-million population were now PhilHealth members.

“We’re gonna make sure that everybody is enrolled next year,” he said. Macon Ramos-Araneta, Manila Standard Today